and are being held back from contributing to the united states and i certainly believe the president's criteria and your criteria are the right criteria. let us focus on removing those people who are a threat to our nation. that should be the highest priority. it will not include these college graduates desperate to go to work and make this a better nation. i hope you will continue along this line on an expedited basis. last night you may have seen or

heard about the front line program. >> i heard about it. >> went into detail about the immigration detention facilities. it focused on a number of them. particularly on the wellesley detention center in texas. are learned a lot about this situation as i followed this program. some 90% of those who were detained under civil charges, not criminal charges, do not have benefit of counsel. the due process requirements are very limited on their behalf and many times they are in facilities that are privatized. private businesses -- it has become acute industry. it is about $1.7 billion a year that your agency spends on immigration detention facilities. there was an aspect of this program that was particularly

troubling. part of the program had a woman that was a victim at this wellesley facility. she had been raped. her identity was hidden from camera and she told her story about how it was virtually impossible for her to seek justice in this circumstance because she was at the mercy of the guards in this privatized facilities. i joined with senator sessions and my other colleagues in passing the prison rape elimination act of 2003 and i think senator sessions was a leader on this level to eliminate sexual abuse in custody in the united states. we wanted to create zero tolerance policy. the front line episode was not the first time we heard troubling reports about sexual abuse suffered by those in immigration detention. national prison raped elimination commission said in its report counts of abuse by staff and detainees has been coming to light for 20 years. detainees are especially

vulnerable to sexual abuse and its effect due to social, cultural and language isolation, pour understanding of u.s. culture and the subculture of u.s. prisons and the traumatic experience they have endured in their culture of origin. the commission issued proposed standards. the department of justice is finalizing its national standards to respond to prison rape. april of this year our wrote to attorney general holder emphasizing the importance of strong standards. what is the department of homeland security doing to insure that immigration detainees are safe from sexual abuse whether there and police facilities or convert facilities? >> we found there were little or no standards being applied uniformly across all of the many detention facilities that we use in the eyes context. some of public jails as senator hatch referred to.

others are privatized. companies like cc a. we have to have bed and in particular given our priorities and how we are managing the system we need beds that are near the southern border. we have as part of that process i brought in someone to actually looked at standards and we read it our contract with some of the private providers. we do have a process by which we are regularly auditing and overseeing what is happening there but that is not to say there aren't cases that are particularly horrific. we also have really tried to emphasize the availability of these ups for those that are victims of crime particularly victims of sexual crime and domestic violence and trying to get out into the field the fact of the matter that this congress and regulations permit these

visas. we will review the documentary that was on last night and follow-up appropriately and keep you posted. >> i thank the committee for its patience. i want to make one last point. we spent annualized $40,000 a year for each of these detainee's when you figure $120 a day is the number i have been told and tried to discount that thinking. some were not that expensive. >> probably a good average. >> $40,000 a year. not that they are charged with a crime. they're in for a civil offense. they have no benefit of counsel and very few do process rights. limited command of the english-language and are easily victimized. i think we have a responsibility to treat them humanely and fairly in this situation so my follow-up letter will not only addressed this issue of standards to protect them from sexual assault and rape to boat go into questions about those

with mental disabilities who were brought into the system. there was this awful case in san diego prosecuted or raised a few years ago where they had two individuals who suffered serious mental illness who had been in the system, lost in the system for two years. what i read and learned since the program last night, my study, they are totally inadequate medical facilities and staff for the people in these detention facilities from psychologists and psychiatrists to nurses and dentists. if we are going to take the responsibility of incarcerating them we have a responsibility to treat them humanely. i want to work with you to make sure that happens. >> i concur. >> senator sessions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it is a criminal offense to be in the united states illegally.

it is not a civil matter. we provide health care for people who are captured entering the country illegally, do we not? >> yes we do. >> you have someone in the country with a health problem and we apprehend them and give them health care. i think in general they are being treated well. and under operation streamline people that are apprehended and prosecuted for a misdemeanor usually understand prosecution if it makes sense are afforded far less than a year's time. >> i think that is right. i would have to concur but i think that is right. >> except for people from distant lands who have difficulty returning. >> the country may not want to

accept them. >> i am very concerned about the morale of our eyes operators. i spent 15 years working with customs officers and border patrol agents and others. would you like to see them motivated, excited about their work, be leaving in their work and they have to believe people at the top support demand believe in the mission they have been given and a real problem with this in june of last year, the eyes union cast unanimous vote of no-confidence in director of immigration and customs enforcement, mr. morton and assistant director of a peace, phyllis:. that was last june. they found, quote, senior ice

leadership dedicates more time to campaign for immigration reform aimed at large scale legislation than advising the american public and federal lawmakers on the severity of the illegal immigration problem and the need for more manpower and resources to address it and they are currently overwhelmed by it massive criminal illegal alien problem in the united states. they go on to say this was in 2010, a niece is misleading the american public with regard to the effectiveness of criminal enforcement programs like secure community programs and using it to move forward with amnesty related legislation. this is their statement. in june of this year and they

report in this release, quote, ice union leaders say that since the no-confidence vote was released, problems within the agency have increased. citing the director's latest discretionary memo as one example, quote, any american concerned about immigration needs to brace themselves for what is coming said the president of national ice council that represents 7,000 agents, officers and employees, quote, goes on to say this is one of many ice policies stopping the enforcement of u.s. immigration laws in the united states. unable to pass the agenda through legislation administration is implementing it through agency columns. he goes on to note while emigrants and others were involved in this policy, no input in these policies was

received from the agency and its employees which is one of the previous complaints they had. are you concerned about this? for two years it appears representative group for these officers have voted no confidence in your leadership and to what extent have you confronted this question, met with them, examined the charges that have been made and made a formal response to them? >> i like you have worked as a prosecutor for many years particularly on border and immigration related matters and i believe the priorities we have set are enhancing morales, and our troops and results matter. we are moving more criminals

from the united states than at any prior time. with respect to priorities that have been set, when you read what director morton sent to his troops he refers to a number of prior memos by prior directors in his or similar positions and the priority says -- very similar historically. that is because they make common sense and reflect the reality that we never had enough resources to remove everyone who is in the country illegally and so you have to have priorities and give guidance to the field across the country of what priorities are. >> focusing mainly on the problems within the department. i am told from leaders of the ice officers that more route is

very low and they believe new standards calling on them to consider dream act type issues to determine whether the person they detained ought to be released or not, whether or not they have a high school diploma, whether or not they might be a witness to a crime that these are very confusing directives and that makes it more difficult for them to act effectively apprehend people illegally. not to say your very disdainful about that. >> not disdainful. >> these are people on the front lines. you have not been out there having to deal with these every day. >> will the secretary answer the question? >> i say from the as a person who worked with federal agents

for years when you hear this kind of comment and vote of no-confidence i never heard of that. you should be paying real attention to them, not rolling your eyes at them. >> i am not rolling my eyes. what i am suggesting is results matter here and priorities really matter. the results reflect the priorities we have set and these are priorities consistent with prior administrations and indeed with what i testified to this committee my first months in office. >> i am told ice carried over from last year 19,000 removals and counting them this year and it is a gimmick to making the removals look higher than they are. are you aware of that? >> what you are referring to in the movement from f y 9 to f y

10 we made the decision that we would not count a removal until there was an actual verified departure from the country and that had the effect of moving some removals of 9 into 10 because there was a removal order but we didn't verify the departure until f y 10. we have continued that practice into fyi 11 so the comparison between the 10 and the 11 numbers are exactly the same. >> what i am hearing is while claiming to arrest more criminal aliens internal ice documents show that dhs leadership ordered field officers not to arrest fugitives for reentry and leadership efforts to conceal this from the public lead to confusion in the field.

officers are afraid to arrest and suspected illegals have been pushing back and even showing agents the memo that you have an say president obama says you can't arrest me. >> if they say that they are not reading it correctly because that is not the case. they can be arrested. at some point in the process there need to be decisions made about who is to be removed. we just had a discussion how much it costs to detain somebody with senator durbin. it cost in the neighborhood of $30,000 to move somebody. that is our cost. doesn't include justice department cost. the congress gives us the ability to finance removal of 400,000 people year. we can remove anybody without priorities and that will be one way to do it and the better way and probably the way you ran

your office when you were prosecutors is to save we want to focus on expediting the removal of those who are criminal, those who are fugitives, those who are repeat violators, those who are recent entrants meaning within five years into the united states and what you are now seeing is the numbers reflect those priorities. >> you have a problem with morale. officers feel you spend more time talking with activist groups then drafting guidelines that help them do their job. started to run over. >> senator coons. >> thank you, madam secretary, for testifying in front of this committee and your discipline and determined leadership of this remarkably far-flung and broad agency in difficult times.

a source of some pleasure to see a fellow german scholar do well. as other members of the committee commented you face an enormous challenges and i want to commend you for the work you're doing given limited resources available to you and given the pressures to keep america safe and secure our borders and respect our constitution and advance our national interests. of the six priority mission areas there is one that hasn't been touched on at all which has to do with insuring safety and security of cyberspace in the united states. in a secure briefing that was hair raising and probably not -- in my case. cyberattacks and coordination between the intelligence community and dhs. the university of delaware instructor who also wrote black hawk down came out with the first digital war which lays out

a disconcerting picture of the connection between the private-sector and government and how we are coordinating our defenses. tell me at the outset how you see your department coordinating with dod and the intelligence community and the private sector in making sure we are sufficiently prepared defensively for the insults i think are coming on a regular basis. >> thank you. i was just in new york yesterday meeting with a number of individuals in the private sector, financial institution sector and the fbi on how we are coordinating in the protection of the cybernetworks on which their operations depend. the analysis is coming out that there is legislation coming out that dhs will have a primary responsibility with the protection of dot.gov networks and the private sector.

we also to the secret service to -- crimes that are committed and we also due to ice have other things like child porn but with respect to the protection of critical infrastructure networks, that is in our npd the division. we have a memorandum of agreement with the department of defense on this and a memorandum with them as to how we can utilize technological resources of the nsa. this is an area where in my judgment we needed to grow. we will have a continuing and expanding threat. there is not yet any international framework on which to hang our hats and there are a lot of challenges here but it is an area that we are moving forward on. >> two things if i might. in your written testimony you

referenced in number of successful partnerships with local law enforcement and local communities to say something nationwide suspicious activity reporting initiative, secure communities initiative. what do you see as the future role of local law enforcement, first responder communities and the national guard and reserve in providing first points of contact and trained work force to provide security for infrastructure and local communities and government as we build towards a future where you are policeing and online border? >> we are discussing this with our local and private sector partners but this will be a unique area for the fusion centers to help. they are designed to be all hazards coke patience and their. almost all of them have access

to real-time classified information. through the fusion centers we can expand our local and private sector reach into the cyberarena. >> one of the larger concerns is the protection of american electoral properties. all of the egregious intrusions have been not just access banking day or financial data to steal people's identities for financial gain but download large quantities of american invention. i just want to point to you a number of initiatives folks on this committee are taking. hope to work with you and your department to make sure the legal infrastructure we put together makes sense and is responsible. i am particularly concerned about infringing shipments. my impression is there are ongoing problems with border control when a interceptions

they believe contain counterfeit goods and whether or not they share that information with the rights holders in a way that allows them to determine whether what is being blocked at the borders counterfeit. that is something that some questions have been raised about whether cdt has the necessary authority to share information about the shipments with the rights holders and whether they can protect shipments in a timely way. be happy to follow up further. that is not something that is clear. last question, the immigrant investor visa program can be a real opportunity to attract foreign nationals with significant resources who want to invent an american companies and communities. our state director of international trade has been trying to be successful but the areas that have been most successful have been through regional centers to aggregate

significant numbers of applicantss and found difficulty getting information about which regional center malls are more successful which have had the greatest success. i just want to leave with you a question about whether it dhs might release more information about which of the centers and which models have been more successful. >> we would be happy to have someone meet with the individual you refer to and across the country and see what is going on. >> are look forward to questions from my colleague about the subprograms and how to advance tourism information. there are good opportunities and jobs. >> colleague from minnesota, senator klobuchar. >> thank you for the work you do every day. i want to mention two things. i have been here for most of the questions but the good work that you have done in our area of funding issues that fema has

done in the red river valley and administrator fewa during his assistants and the second piece of that is something on a down thing many people focus on that you do with adoption when things come up in helping parents adopt children from other countries and some of the issues that come up. the last hearing asked about a family from the philippines. senator sessions and i worked together to pass a bill allowing older siblings to still be adopted. if they have a younger sibling that is adopted this literally allowed 10,000 kids retroactively to come into loving homes in our country. one of them is the mccord family. thanks to your agency they going to have to leave the two older kids that held the family of 9 together and thanks to the work of your agency the two older

kids were able to get on a plane with a family. imac all nine children in a celebration at the community and it wouldn't have happened without the work of your agency. i am on the commerce committee and want to focus on those related issues. the first which i know you have been talking about is the aviation security. it is my impression of someone with a it replacement dealing with your people, it has been a great improvement in more route over the past few years. they appreciate the local defense that you have given to them when questions are raised and questions should be raised but overall they are protecting security of the people in this country doing an incredibly difficult job. the issue are want to raise with the body scanner. that is a concern of some people with the new security that is

there. i haven't had a problem with it. it is great because it goes faster but you discussed this new software and give your assessment of how it has been working. >> we began installing software that rather than the smudged photo like images just a stick figure. it identifies where there may be an anomaly that requires someone though they forgot to take something out of their pocket or somebody needs to be checked, initially when this was being deployed in amsterdam there were a lot of false positives but they have been rectified. we are in the process of installing that software throughout the country. >> what is happening with the pre check pilot? which is implemented--some that are going on.

>> that is right. pre check is the name of a domestic version of global entry. it is the process by which people can voluntarily provide information on biometrics and that will help speed them to the chicken or the security line. one of the issues is scaleability given the number of passengers we have on a daily basis but my initial reports are the pilot is very popular and people really like it. >> senator coons mentioned the tourism archive. i share that subcommittee with ray blunt and we just introduced the international tourism facilitation act which we worked with the state department to make sure we were doing something that had a chance of passing. we have seen improvement. we are waiting to get the exact numbers on the state department

side. since 9/11 we lost 16% of the international tourism market which is 467,000 jobs. we want to keep those security measures in place as my colleagues discussed and while keeping them in place we want to make the more efficient. one more point. the national tourism market is 160,000 jobs in this country. my question is about the background checks for tourist visas performed by the state department but dhs plays a role in providing background checks. are you familiar with that? how can we make that run more smoothly? >> let me if i might, check in to that. and perhaps have someone meet with you. there are some problems. let's figure that out.

>> this whole thing is workable. we don't want to change your security. but on the state department side, that you cannot process these as one issue that has come up with the dhs side. we would love to work with you on it. >> as former governor of a state that was dependent on tourism i appreciate this is a jobs issue. >> we are excited about the new efforts going on. no change the last few years and there seems to be a lot of interest in making changes. the last thing i want to follow up on with cybersecurity, a share senator coons's view that it has to be public-private partnership. of the private sector and the 80%, the cybersystem that works, what more can we do to encourage business and institutions to work with the government on cybersecurity challenges? >> this is one of the issues

congress has to take up when it takes up cybersecurity legislation but the extent to which particularly private business is controlling critical infrastructure of the country should give notice if there has been intrusion or attack, how is it shared and what is government's role, is in demand 8, these are all things appropriate for congressional resolution. >> people are shocked a few months ago when that one worker working on the power grid -- was that in arizona? >> southwest arizona. >> that the power grid have gone down and affecting power in southern california and other places. more has to be done to protect the power grid and what should our priorities be and looking from a cybersecurity issue that was an accident but highlights we should be doing more. >> that was a situation where

six million people were without power. two million people without power for six hours because of an accident with one worker. i asked my staff to look at what happened and why there were not redundant or fail-safe systems to deal with that. >> thank you very much. senator schumer discussing this buffalo bridge. i have few questions and done no further senators want to hear about with minnesota so i will put those on the record and ask you to answer them at a later time. >> i would be happy to. >> distinguished senator from minnesota, it is not without precedent that sometimes questions appear parochial that have been asked here. [talking over each other]

>> i appreciated the earlier answers and my colleague, senator whitehouse is here. >> there has not been a single time i called the secretary that i have not been able to get her and get a response. services not -- we have a difficult time getting answers. shea have always been available. senator whitehouse. >> madam secretary, your remarks about cybersecurity legislation that ought to be and shall be undertaken fairly soon make a good segway in to my questioning. let me first ask you what level of urgency and dispatch would you advise that we proceed to this legislation with? >> i would hope you proceed

quickly. this is an area that is evolving very rapidly, having a basis in statute for jurisdiction authorization and the like. very important. work has been done on the senate side and the house side. our hope -- i would hope congress can move very quickly to resolve this and give us a bill. >> you hope we can do it quickly because what? >> this is an area that deserves some foundation in statute. right now we're moving administratively and things are moving and they are moving expeditiously but it does seem to me there is a lot happening here which ultimately needs to be established. not just there is -- jurisdiction but physically as well. this is something congress has to take up. >> do you think the legislation

that has been proposed, particularly for allowing more protection and government support of our critical infrastructure can be implemented quickly and will make a difference in terms of the safety and security of the american people? >> i believe so but one of the areas where the department of homeland security needs to expand its capability is in cyber. it is difficult to higher professionals in this area. there's a lot of competition for these individuals. it is one of the reasons we initially made a decision that we wouldn't try to replicate a civilian nsa with the military

nsa. there would be arrangements to share their technological expertise. this is an area even in a period of restrain fiscal resources that needs focus. >> at the moment, if our nsa folks were aware of an attack that was targeting an american bank, financial processing center like a utility network, would they need -- would you need the kind of authority this legislation can provide in order to intervene and protect the civilian infrastructure? >> it is hard for me to answer that hypothetical as opposed. what i can say is right now

particularly with the financial institution sector we have a lot of cooperation. whether we have the authority of command and control in the event of attack, no. that would be something that needs to be looked at legislatively. >> hypothetically the government could be aware of an attack taking place but be unable to do anything to respond and head off. >> i am reluctant to answer the hypothetical as proposed because in those extreme events my experience as secretary is statue or no statute it work things out but the world would be a better. more clear and focused player if we had a basic cyberstatute. >> i will leave it at that. thank you. >> thank you. senator whitehouse has worked a

great deal on this. we are having a meeting this afternoon of some of us on cybersecurity. we passed a bill out of this committee. there are other committees, intelligence and commerce and others and we have to do it. i am not as concerned -- obviously i am concerned. we have to be. but i am concerned someone will try to hijack a passenger plane as much as i am what happens when it is the middle of the winter, ranging from 10 above to 30 below zero throughout the northeast and all the power grids shut off. you are talking hundreds of thousands of people could die in a large period of time. what happens if our air traffic control is turned off?

not only the images to the rest of the world but the huge commercial disruption, plus the very real possibility of loss of life depending where the planes are and what the weather is. these are things we have to look at. communications. phones all go dead. we move trillions of dollars worth of commercial activities today in this country and overseas. these are things we have to worry about. the old days you worry about someone being a bank robber. now of they robbed a bank 10,000 miles away and get a lot more

money. >> it is not only the risk of cybersabotage to our critical infrastructure and finance and electronic grid and communication in the places you mentioned but also the question of private-sector's intellectual property being stolen and placed through the internet by major international competitors in order to avoid having to the licensing fees to americans or do their own research and development. how much more easy it is to hack into an american corporation's database and have trade secrets and rebuild a factory of your own. is being done by the terabytes. we are on the losing end of the greatest transfer of wealth through piracy and illicit

behavior in the history of humankind and we are doing little about it. i hope for a stronger clarion call about the urgency of passing this legislation and the change it can make if we get it passed. >> a lot of these attacks are state-sponsored. everybody wants to dance around that and we go into more but some is state-sponsored. that is a form of warfare. you wanted to say something. >> i want to clarify i hope my answer didn't suggest to you that we don't view this as urgent legislation. we do. the department has participated in 80 some odd briefings about the need for legislation. we testified 20 times about the need for the legislation. we participated heavily in the drafting of the legislation.

we believe there is an urgent need for the legislation. i was interpreting your question as what are you doing now and how you getting by but the plain fact of the matter is our jurisdiction moving forward the path would be much more clear and there is urgent need for legislation in this regard and i am hopeful that both chambers have been addressing this. that this is one area where the congress is able to move. >> glad you clarified your remarks and i appreciate it. >> i understand we have votes here very soon so i will wrap this up. i have questions for you. about the task force. i want to have a written response and ask about how dhs

handles the cases of u.s. citizens arrested and detained by ice. i would like statistics on all u.s. citizens arrested in secure communities, duration of their custody and the resolution of these cases. our thank you very much. do you want to add anything else? >> no, mr. chairman. i have enjoyed being the witness. >> that would fall under understatement. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations]

[silence] [silence] >> republican presidential candidate congressman ron paul is campaigning in iowa. on road to the white house

congressman paul will be at the university of halle in iowa city. live coverage at 9:00 eastern on c-span2 and c-span.org. >> this weekend six republican presidential candidates travel to des moines for the our web freedom coalition candidate forum. live coverage of hurricane, newt gingrich and rick santorum and governor rick perry and representatives ron paul and michele bachman at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's road to the white house. >> it is very obvious to me that with all the priorities we have -- until further notice every decision a national government makes, every close call should be made in favor of economic growth. every time should be broken in favor of growth of the private sector. >> he worked as adviser in the

reagan white house and omb director in george w. bush's administration and implemented spending cuts that reduce the $1 billion budget surplus. sunday night mitch daniels and his new book the economy and his decision not to run for president in 2012 that a:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. >> three female marines who served in afghanistan talk about their work in the country as part of the female engagement team hosted by the organization women and defense. an affiliate of the national defense industrial system. this is 45 minutes. >> i have the distinct pleasure this afternoon to introduce one of my favorites. i am not supposed to say i have a favorite but i already did and now we're being filmed and it is on record. i will just go with that. one of my very favorites.

i met these women in san diego for conference we did out there and it was so striking and reminded me of why i fly coast to coast several times a week to do women in defense and reminded me why we are doing what we are doing and i am honored to share with you folks from the marine corps. my oldest son is in the marine corps. i have that passion as well. first that would like to introduce -- a different change up. i would like to introduce lieutenant-colonel julie nethercot first and give her the honor to introduce to you her marines. julie nethercot was commissioned in may 1993 following her graduation from middle university with a bachelor's degree in science and biology and natural science and chemistry. on graduation from the communication officers school in 1994, julie nethercot reported to duty at marine corps air station cherry point.

from 1995 to 1997 she served with bravo company. since that time as much as i want to read her entire biography which is impressive i promised i would not. but since that time to highlight some of them she served operation iraqi freedom once, operation enduring freedom, served on staff in a the central command in bahrain. he served as battalion commander in camp pendleton and it was really there that her battalion was deployed to afghanistan and you will hear more about that day. her personal decorations are many. she is recipient of the 2010 major meghan mccrump award for

leadership. my tremendous honor, lieutenant-colonel julie nethercot. [applause] >> it is an honor for us to be here. first and foremost on behalf of the three marines up here thank you for inviting us to join you today to the international conference. really great to be here. had the opportunity to meet many of you for lunch and see some of our friends we met in san diego. the opportunity to learn more about what each of you do. thank you for having us out here today. you forget how much time has passed until you have your bio rad. and oh my goodness! where has the time gone? i finished my battalion command for this spring. for those who don't know, battalion is 1200 marines and sailors that i was honored and blessed to lead. it was the greatest honor of my

life to lead those marines. i spent a year of that in combat in afghanistan. i will forever cherished that. amazing young americans. i come to you with a recent perspective but more importantly two amazing marines. these two marines serve as female engagement team members. i am sure you heard the luncheon speaker speak about it and you will get to hear from them their perspective. capt. victoria sherwood on my left and sergeant sara bryan. the lot will tell you they're great stories. victoria sherwood was team leader early on in 2009. team 001 in helmand province. she will talk about those early days. she is a graduate of the great state of connecticut. anyone here from connecticut? you are on your own. oh, one. the photographer is from connecticut. awesome. we are off to a running start.

and sergeant sara bryan in the sec team in helmand province. she is from virginia. anyone from a virginia or is she on her own? you have some friends. you are a little better off. what we would like to do over the next 45 minutes is give you an overview of women's roles in afghanistan from the perspective of the marines you have in front of you today. afghanistan is different. every province has a different story. hours are from holland province. alternate to each of them. with your conference theme of growing and giving we hope the illustration we share with you today will dovetail my plan to your own experience. we embrace themes of creativity and flexibility when we were in afghanistan and you had a brief on the budget earlier today so maybe that will come in to play.

you never know. you will see a slide show in the background through the rest of the presentation. let me start by saying we have come a long way from the photos you see. those women were trailblazers to where they are today. they set the stage but professionalism and tenacity and perseverance to take on something new and made a difference. we wouldn't be here if it wasn't up to them. they were successful in times of transformation and as the years progressed we see changes in the role of women in the of services. we have women flying jets and helicopters and driving trucks. working as team members in explosive ordnances through dozens of other skill sets. in addition to changes in the services the services themselves have adapted. gone are the days of the delineated front line or the rear supporters. now we deal with distributed operations that come with counter insurgency where lines

are fuzzy at best were the -- the best way to influence security of a local village. this dynamic requires us to be flexible in thought and action to be successful. the old paradigm fall by the wayside when you are engaging in a population dealing with a kinetic and any. i know means an all-inclusive list i will highlight three groups of women in afghanistan. they are the combat marine women in key leadership in afghanistan. lastly female engagement teams on my left. typical assignments for women marines include all the combat secured missions which is communication and military police and dozens of specialists. performance in afghanistan has been superb. as one former commander commented, these marines formed

exceptionally well and operate under many difficult circumstances. women serve as donors and drivers. bottom line are do not distinguish between male and female. my female marines played a key support in their mission. . sticks are one example of the changing environment for women in the service. the next area that illustrates change of women's roles is that of key leadership positions. the fact that i am standing before you today as a battalion commander illustrates how far we have come. a key leader who illustrated changes my former boss, lori reynolds. she is at perez island now. was commanding officer -- she had five battalions working for her to include a company of brain soldiers. pretty amazing. not only responsible for the large camp in helmand province

but she was responsible for securing and engaging the population which was never happened before. we were lucky. it was to colonel reynolds we pushed this idea for a full-time female engagement team and she allow us to go forward. we will move on to the female team. the concept of females engagement team is not new to the marine corps. we draw upon origins from iraqi freedom. the program was to surge female and a culturally sensitive manner in iraq. we took will be learned from that and tried to make it a little better. for afghanistan a team was formed for the provinces. we are blessed to have kept an victoria sherwood to share those experiences. the program has expanded to

allow greater emphasis on long-term engagement with the population. in summer of 2009 after reading from actions like victoria sherwood we made a proposal to form the first full time set. it trends on three trends we bring seeing from the after action from afghanistan. first we believe the division needs to be dedicated to the mission to better understand the population and development of the village. in a cultural relationship they had to deploy the village to see the same person every time they came through. that culture is so focused on relationships and takes a lot of time. they needed to train before hand in realistic scenarios and rigorous training. they had to train months in advance to move forward in afghanistan. lastly the team has to understand as much as possible and be familiar with the

culture. their success is dependent on their ability to interact with the population. they have to stand on their own. six months later 40 marines from camp pendleton deployed as the first team of which sara bryan was one. she had a variety of skills sets but each was training full time. military members sometimes -- sometimes a female medics which pays dividendss having that capability. these marines are screened for strong leadership and physical fitness and the ability to engage independently because they were going to be on their own so they need to handle themselves. their training from culture to language to combat skills put a lot of time into making sure they would be successful in the battlefield.

when we departed afghanistan the team's ring in 11 districts in 80 villages operating in 30 outposts. we will roll the video. [inaudible] >> develop a relationship with the team and the population and culture. [inaudible] >> we're here to engage all of the population. >> your mommy and daddy --

>> my sister and my mother. >> women from one of compound and just a few women and excited -- didn't have an interpreter or anything. we were there for over an hour. and over the other compound and climbing over the walls and they were surrounding us and we were having a blast trying on a different outfits they had and took a tube of lipstick and put makeup on and had a lot of fun. >> it was like disneyland. the biggest obstacle is trying to get mails to talk to females.

they have strong beliefs in their culture which makes it hard for us. female linguists are hard to come by. most of the males here won't allow us to talk -- it is the toughest challenge so far. >> makes me proud to be part of it. i do think that is really useful here for all the companies out here. getting our faces out when they see the men and not necessarily -- when they see the female they know we're not here to fight or hurt anybody. we could talk to the men and children and women and male marines only talk to the men and children. ♪ ..

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>> the kitchen, or whether babies are. since we are able to go to these places, and a eliminate that as an option which was very important. so they did find weapons. they did find money and sergeant bryan can talk about that. she has great stories on that. another area that we realized is that ability to soften or de-escalate a situation. you heard that mentioned up there. we often quote an afghan elder who said it best, when we see your man we know they're here to fight, but when we see your women we know they are here to

help. that little phrase was more important than we realize. we sought time and time again. so it is one thing for someone at my level to convey the success of these marines and impact it had. it's another to hear from them. but ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to present captain victoria sherwood. [applause] >> thank you so much for the opportunity to come speak today. i could not even say how much it means to be in front of women of your caliber that have long been in the game of women in defense. i'm working on the assumption that it was in the true spirit of diversity or perhaps because the program is getting too long you need someone with a comparatively short biography. -- biography. i'm happy to be that women. but in all seriousness i'm here to speak you today about a program that i get to part of in 2009. it ended up being a bit of a

role changer for women in the marine corps, the way the marine corps was utilizing its women. i did not know that. i made a joke earlier, if you're ever confused about the extent you might be expecting some sort of greater change, if cnn, fox news, the associate press are behind you, solid chance that you are. it's also -- in early 2000 i deployed to helmand province, afghanistan, with my unit. i was to communicate an officer. that's essentially a gas station for the air wing. a vital job for the initial entry of bring forces into afghanistan but not something i had originally thought was going to throw me on foot patrol. in that capacity my squadron had also asked me to be intelligence officer. noticing i suppose i had those inherent qualities. [laughter] so when i arrived in country i did all of my turn of with existing unit which was a

special-purpose, sort of holding ground for the marine corps so that larger bring brigade could get on deck. so the units there had a lot of interesting gadget of the infrastructure of the base and thinks we would be taking over. but i didn't really get that foresight for what would ultimately become my mission. until i did turn over with the as to intelligence officer, a really dynamic fellow, yet many "wall street journal" reporter at the beijing desk prior to coming into the marine corps so we have this great frame of reference or how to address problems in a way that maybe us wet behind the years didn't automatically have. at any rate, he had been on deck when a situation arose in which a local woman to the helmand province population had been badly beaten by her husband and that hair ripped from her scalp. feeling i suppose in desperate circumstances she escaped to a

remote outpost where some of our combat troops were at the time. and proceeded to default a lot of really significant intelligence to those marines. that at the same time those marines you can imagine, they're being told not to interact with the female population, this will be disrupted to relationship in trying to build in the community. and neither is a hysterical woman advocate giving them intelligence. they help her wounds and they got intelligence and then he went on patrol to bring her back to the village to prevent any sort of antagonistic relationship. in the meantime, this crossed the captain's desk and he doesn't know what to do because he can necessary be sure. he has more things we like to ask her, and called been in the right place at the right time, my schoolmate was the watch officer for the same unit and he said, joe, can a teacher tactical questioning and we go out and try to locate his women

again? that's exactly what they did. not yet really pointing the name or having any grander plan, just trying to address a very real scenario he encountered in his time out there, so fast forward when we did our turnover, said to me, vicky, we found great success will take you out on these patrols and she is access to the woman and she can talk to the woman and would really get our finger on the polls, what's happening with this half of the community. not only are the problems coming up, specific to women, they are in our area of operations and they can tell us what's going on. i just think it would be great if you took my rations. when they get on deck nature this is a program to pursue, which is what i did. but being a second lieutenant was a good idea, no matter how much paperwork you have behind you, i'm sure the g2 thought i was crazy when i proposed this to the. but they very graciously took the captain's notes and proceeded from there. well, fast forward about a month

forward of that with second in the southern area, completely surrounded in a castle. the taliban put on workers and clearly walked out of the compound because the second did not have a search capability. which we already realize is irrelevant in iraq. how quickly can we form what came to be known as the female engagement team. we were formed in country. they pulled 40 female marines from around the brigades. we conducted training in country and we started out on foot patrol. the rest is sort of history except their own abstraction we realize a couple of things. i was so they can occasions officer for my squadron. as the colonel was saying, i was doing that as my day job and pushing out with these operations here and there as my platoon could allow that to happen. so it was decided we're going to make this a full-time thing in the program has grown from

there. i will say, and i know i choked about the microscope, someone has to be first. it's probably not a message i need to tell anyone in this room, but in speaking with some of you at lunch, you were kind of pointing out being first must have been a real bummer, a lot of pressure. it's really not. and i'll offer sort of as an epilogue to my own career, the ring special operation command has picked up this idea. and i got the message yesterday that they're looking for female engagement team. psycho to my operations officer, and i'm trying to tell them that there's a first outage at one of our other bases implications. that's not here nor there. and then headed by the way, did you know they're starting a funeral engagement team? and smiled at me and said, let's give it a year. i need you here in his capacity for year, and anyway, you probably don't want to be first. so, i will just offer to you, i

do. [laughter] and i'm sure, i'm sure it's not a message that any of you need to hear but i'm very happy to been there when i was. it was a lot of in the right person at the right time. and was an excellent opportunity to be able to turn over to the marines as capable as sergeant bryan and 13. thank you very much for having me. [applause] >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. i'm sergeant bryan, and like you said, i'm from the great state of virginia. out all my backup in here. so as my true southern self i will probably ramble on because i don't like to write speeches. i like to talk. but as lieutenant kevin ellicott and captain sherwood said, i was part of the female engagement team, and got involved with myself and others and came up with this harebrained idea they thought we are crazy that. captain sherwood paving the way for us, and we deployed in march

of 2010. when i first got into afghanistan i was with third battalion marines, and we were originally over by the iranian border. when we first got over there, the area i was income it was like the perfect environment for female engagement team. a lot of low-key when we were, and i met an actual female teacher where i was. and i thought this is like the an omlt in afghanistan because you never heard of girls in schools. so we were in this area, and they told us about her but it never likely senior. they were like we know she's here but we don't know where. so we go out on patrols and they see us, and like we were probably maybe the second team to go out on patrols in that area ever. so they see us out and once the little kids, you will learn to look it took him like the telephone game up there. as soon as they see, the words

scatter like wildfire. within five minutes, was little kids see, everyone knows you are there. the female teacher, she comes out. she speaks perfect english. and she had over a one to 660 children that were in the school. what had happened was our civil affairs people that were out there, they build the school, that these girls were attending. so i sat down with her and she was so very bold and outspoken, and then just sitting there like in all of this woman. because most of the time you see them, they're never outside of the compound. as they previously stated, like you have to go through the mails to engage their win. because most of these women will never leave their compound walls unless it's to go to a family member's home, but the men do all the market once. had a funny conversation with a woman was saying i go to wal-mart back on. but she can't look at me like,

okay. but i'm talking to this schoolteacher and what did happen was her husband was killed by the taliban. and she wanted her children to get an education. and she was very adamant about this and she was literally, like when should people talk about security in the area, she would get up in the face and i was like in awestruck of this one. she ended up being a very key role in this identifying security in the area, like problems, pointing out taliban in the area because she wanted to make sure that her girls were going to get an education. she wanted the taliban to stay away from her girl school. so that area was a very secure area. we got to pass out of toy babies to the children. but this area, it was like i said, it was perfect for engagement with the children. the women, there are several compounds i went in, and like colonel nethercot said, we had to learn posthuma.

before, i could carry a basic conversation because we know if we had interpreters. i got asked if i was asked in a couple of times. are you from afghan? no, i'm not playing dress up. [laughter] so in this area like i said, it was amazing for that, but iced spent about three and half months there with their marines, we got the call of that we're going to push closer to the pakistani area. and it was a completely different ballgame. i didn't see any women, very few children in this area. it was a very kinetic area, that the company commanded that it worked for i had worked with him before, and he saw us as a huge force multiplier that maybe we could get out there and they would see us in a different

light than his guys that are going out there, his guys are the ones they're taking down the doors. his guys are the ones doing the clearing operations. made we can get at the end of see us in a different light. so i will never forget my first patrol there. i walked out and i'm kind of like not really sure yet, getting a feel for the area, and i'm honestly like i'm just they're standing around, just following the leader, like petroleum. they get a call over the radio and said, since brian over your. so i walk up and they are like caring over a group over here and i'm catholic what you want me to do? they're having their own conversation. i see this guy, he's kind of like creeping over a wall like peeking at us down the road. i'm like, whatever. i just get as loud as i can. like scream at greene added dependably stops and looks at me like what is wrong with you. he will come over here and talk to us with the old way you'll get them over here to say hi.

just like we do back home. i'm yelling at this guy and he's like looking behind him like who, me? yes, you. come over here. he comes up when he doesn't want to talk to me. i'm being a little annoying self and i just like come on, i'm like that little annoying kid, biting him. some talking to him and i did have an interpreter in the standing there. and he starts laughing. and i'm like what are you laughing at? he said they don't believe you're a girl. they think you're a prepubescent boy. [laughter] and i am like, really offended by this. really? and so i look at him and i'm like no. and i'm trying to show him my hair, i know i look like a boy, saying that today, i pull up to curl my hair and unlike thank you, sir. and unlike i guess much doesn't change when i'm at home. my monkey suit. [laughter] we're out here and talking to this guy and i was like what you

do for them living. and i'm a farmer. i grow corn in water mill. my family, we grow tobacco back in virginia. cigarettes, but watermelon? levitate about watermelon in afghanistan. you'll never eat watermelon the same year in america as the watermelon in afghanistan. because it's amazing. so i tell you this and he laughs at me like i'm in that case. then he goes off, they are like ready, everything winds down and we are about to proceed back to the base. and i'm walking back across in my interpreter is like way, what's up with you see this guy running across the field with these two watermelons like chasing after me. he had heard me tell this guy this, and he heard me say this and you want to bring watermelons. but he also wanted to come and talk to me later on because i was the first female to ever go in this area. they had never seen a woman before, and he felt more comfortable if he could talk to

me than the guys and he wanted to talk to me about what was going on in areas that none of our guys know about. so it ended up being this guy really ended up giving us a lot of information, a lot of good intelligence on what was going on in the area. ended up saving a lot of marines lives. another instance that happen such as this is we even had some guys that would come to me and even point out where ied for. i don't know if many of you of heard of this place but we had the most, like a double in the keys and such in afghanistan. and it is still the most dangerous area of operations. so for me to of had the capability to brought that to my battle space owner, i still feel good about this today because my unit is back there right now and they are very excited to utilize because we had such a success last year in the exact same area. so i know that it helped my brothers out there but i know that captain sherwood do the same time and my fellow marines that i served with, so, you

know, i'm proud that i did not. and another will answer a lot of questions for you guys, so thank you again for letting me be here today, and i can't wait to talk to you guys later on. [applause] >> so, tricia, i realized our schedule is a little bit influx. 10 minutes for q&a? so, we will field whatever we can, and if you just, i don't think there's a microphone floating around, but i think we can hear you in this room. [inaudible] >> could you speak more about what the future is? what the military can do for your program.

>> the question is, has it been brought up -- [inaudible] >> right, right. i can only tell you what, when we left, the british were running a similar program, so it started to take on a little bit of an international field as well. and we had more requests in afghanistan than we had teams fill them. once it really caught on, and people realize the ability that the team brought to the battle space owners, these two people illustrating their stories, it really took off. so outside of this, you heard captain sherwood talk about marcel. i think some other place or country out how to use that -- okay, we have -- with some music for you. standby. [laughter] nevermind.

♪ ♪ it's all part of the plan, folks. in case you're wondering. [laughter] didn't have a band so we brought it on cd. so, in answer to question, i think other places are looking to do. i would love to speak to you after as will. i'm at the national war college now myself, student. responsible for myself. so you can catch us afterwards and we can give you great point of contact to help out with her haps your research. absolutely. >> tearing off of that, i worked with a british unit. they were due -- they use one of our teams down there. to start to get a feel of how the network would be used and i know they made contact with our command before we were leaving because they were starting up their program before we even left afghanistan off of ours. >> great. after this, definitely catch us up in will give you some great

points of contact for them, and i think transeventy soaring to investigate is as well. >> very proud to share the uniform with such brave, wonderful ladies such as you. so thanks for all you have done, and staying at captive to a combat arena which takes him innovation and adaptability, et cetera, et cetera. so thank you so much. [applause] >> has the army picked up on this process as well? and what extent have you done some training with the? >> the army has a permanent team actually under special operations command and they're calling it a cst but they draw heavily from green card f.e.t. and a baby being pulled personnel for part of their training.

i think they're not even in their second or third iteration of sending e-mails to the very complete robust package of trade within the special warfare community. >> thank you very much. my husband is a former marine, and this will impress the heck out of him. [laughter] thank you. >> thank you ma'am. we appreciate it. >> you win, you have the mic. >> i want to echo the admirals, and. i'm a former u.s. army officer and i am just so impressed, and thank you for your service and which are doing today. my question goes to you what kind of impact or if you envision there being an impact with the f.e.t.s and bringing to the table for leadership in the transitional democracy, or the type of changes that need to occur, do you see or have any role in bringing women to the

table for decision making in these villages, whether just at the local level or broader across the country? >> i will refer to these two. i think that some personal experiences, and i think you're probably from it with a national action plan. there is a plan going on right now regarding how to bring women more into the national security arena through various phases of conflict. so we can talk about that as well. i will turn over to sergeant bryan and captain sherwood. >> i know for myself, like even just i know we have another bring it in the audience, but when you first go to the table, even inside the marine corps, like being a woman going to the infantry battalions, there have oath of office first that will. at first they were like, are you lost? but as the deployment went on it was like i honestly was telling them where i want to go, what we needed to be doing, and it was to the point where i was able to

make decisions, and they trusted my judgment because of so much of what happened previous, and the success we've had. that was just for the marine corps side of the. as far as the villages went, a lot of the elders would sit down with me and talk to me, you know, about what was going on and we would try to make a plan with the company commander, like who owns that battle space, what we could do to help the issues in the area. so i felt honored complex one, on the marine corps site and on the village aside. because i know how big of a deal it is but it's like that their general comes into play. i wasn't seen as a woman in their eyes, but i'm not seen as like a regular, you know, male in the eyes either. [inaudible] on television we see going into

villages, you have children coming and hanging on the legs and smiling. i was curious about your reception with children of the village. with a receptive? with a more receptive to you as women as they may have been some of the male marines? and then kind of a philosophical question. do you think we're making a difference in being there for that generation, the children come and with a fearful, or what was that like? >> the children were very receptive to us. i ask we don't know if i can say authoritatively that more to us as women than in men, but a lot of times because we're trying to make those inroads to the women, children were going to be around. and i think it meant a lot to the women, too, that we were holding their babies. we were providing medical care for their children. we're talking about their hopes and education and things like that. a lot of times in the process of

building relationships with the women there was a lot of interaction with the children as well. i like to think, and particularly for the girls, that singh is in the capacity might have been meaningful. i think at the very least, they understood very clear that we meant them no ill will. we were there to improve their communities. i hope that the message they take with them as they become leaders and grow into leadership roles. >> i know for myself, there was an incident with an ied that happened, and it was a little girl who was injured real badly in the explosion. as far as like a brain injury. she ended up having to get medevac and they brought her back. when she was brought back, they needed someone to stay with it. because it was a girl, we had an army f.e.t. team that was there with us. they asked me to come and stay with her. i did everything, i stayed up all night with her. it was her and her dad because her dad had to be with her the whole time because he was her

elder. i gave her medicine. and i like to think that i made a difference, in his eyes of us being in that area. and maybe, like maybe before that he might've had, you know, ill will towards us. but i like to think after that maybe is my may change because we have a communication very. we can have an interpreter in the area at the time so it was like you're going back to kindergarten basic with hand signals time to communicate, trying to let them know i'm not going to hurt her. i just want to wash her hair. he actually came back a couple months later. i was out on a mission at the time, but he told a summit at the time he had a book. he kept trying to tell me about a book. he brings the book back for me and it's like posthuma the english book he brought back for me. and i like to think that we made a difference in a lot of incidents like this. the kids love them everywhere we went, no matter where we were, the children were so excited to

see. my five year old son has a twin, i have pictures of him. and i brought him -- i brought them home to show my mom. every time we were back to this village, afghan national police, that was the commander but he was to little boy, go to your mom, go to your mom. [laughter] every time they would exceed, the rig site, his mom is here. >> one more. [inaudible] i know you'd rather be back in country do what you do so well, but is there any thought sending a team like you to our local schools? because i can't possibly imagine there are role models for american girls and boys then do three. [applause] [applause] >> we will be around for a little bit.

if you have a question that we didn't get to, or you would like to ask it off-line, we will be around for a couple of hours throughout the rest of your symposium. i nutrition is on the way up, but again -- thank you so much. [applause] .. >> the council on foreign relations this morning is hosting this discussion here or in washington. senator levin expected to touch on the death of moammar gadhafi and the future of lin ya -- libya. this is live coverage on c-span2, it's just getting

underway. >> either during my own speech or during questions, don't take it personally. the senate was in until about, i don't know, 1 or 1:30 last night. and there's some reporters here who usually cover the senate, and i'm, i have a question for you. where were you at 1:30 last night? [laughter] last october i came here to have discuss president obama's decision to begin reducing u.s. troop presence in afghanistan. that decision of the president was under attack in various quarters. i felt that the reduction of our forces which was supposed to begin last july and did begin last july was vitally important because it would provide a strong incentive for the afghans to take responsibility for their own security which in turn is

essential to the success of our mission, and that mission is to help build a stable afghanistan able and willing to fight off attempts by the taliban to retake control. two months ago, as jim said, i made my sixth trip to afghanistan. afghan, u.s. and other coalition forces are making significant military progress. security is improving in the south, and be our military commanders are increasingly focused on the east where the insurgent threat remain resilient, particularly the threat there the haqqani network operating out of safe havens in pakistan. the capabilities of the afghan national security forces are growing both in quantity and in quality. afghans' army and police are almost 50,000 men stronger than when we met here last year. afghan forces are conducting a

greater proportion of the missions and are increasingly in the lead. just this week "the new york times" reported that afghan troops led a lengthy, intense operation to clear insurgents from a key supply route in kunar province. we're succeeding in training the afghan army and other security forces to a higher level of effectiveness, and the afghan local police program has shown initial success. this that program our special -- in that program our special operations forces live with and train afghan, local afghans. and that's important. they're selected by the village elders. their goal is to defend their own villages against the insurgents. finally, transition of security responsibility is moving forward as afghan forces have assumed the security lead in seven areas

around afghanistan. afghan leaders continue to show that they understand the urgency of preparing for afghan security forces taking the lead on security throughout afghanistan in 2014, a date set by presidents obama and karzai, a date endorsed by the international coalition. i've long believed that the taliban's worst nightmare is an afghanistan secured by strong and effective afghan forces that have the support of the afghan people. that nightmare is becoming the taliban's reality. in this transition to afghan control does not mean that the united states will abandon afghanistan. the strategic partnership agreement that's being negotiated between the united states and afghanistan will play an important role in demonstrating to the afghan people and the neighbors of

afghanistan that the united states intends to remain engaged in afghanistan and the region. now, of course, significant challenges remain. and if they're not effectively addressed, they could undermine security gains achieved at a great cost. first, the government of afghanistan needs to increase its legitimacy with the afghan people and needs to improve governance, deliver services, end corruption, include inclusively and transparency for the rule of law. but we also should not ignore the fact that there's been some progress even in some of those areas. for instance, more than two million afghan girls are in school today compared to almost none in 2001. infant mortality has fallen rapidly, and access to health care has expanded. now, surely there is a long way to go. we should acknowledge that while we can cajole, encourage and

pressure the afghan government to provide good governance, we cannot guarantee that. only the afghans can do that. hopefully, the lessons of the arab spring have reached afghanistan. leaders who fail to deliver accountable and transparent government lose their legitimacy, and they are more and more finding that their political survival is at risk. but even if karzai government has the will to improve governance, it cannot succeed without security. the greatest threat to security in afghanistan and the focus of my remarks this morning is the threat posed by the safe havens that harbor insurgents across the border in pakistan. the haqqani network in north waziristan in particular has used its sanctuary in pakistan to launch deadly attacks on

afghan, u.s. and other coalition forces in afghanistan. attacks by the operatives of the haqqani network included the attack on the hotel intercontinental in kabul in june that killed 21 people, the massive truck bomb in wardak province that injured several dozen u.s. soldiers and the attack just last month on the u.s. embassy on kabul. the threat emanating from these safe havens is not new. we've known about it for years, and we've repeatedly pressed the pakistanis to act. i have seen personally how pakistan's government has stalled and dissembled on this issue. i have repeatedly personally urged president zardari, prime minister ghailani and general kayani,be the pakistani army chief of staff in meetings both here in washington and in

islamabad to act to eliminate these terrorist sanctuaries. now, typical of these experiences was the pakistani response during my august visit. when i again raised the issue of safe havens in pakistan. when we asked why the pakistani military had not gone into north waziristan to eliminate these safe havens, we heard the same excuses that we've heard before about how the pakistani army was already overcommitted elsewhere. now, i then pressed prime minister ghailani to explain why if pakistan for whatever reason can't or won't clear out these safe havens, why is it that senior pakistan officials have not at least publicly condemned the deadly cross-border attacks by the haqqanis? prime minister ghailani initially said in response to that question that his

government had publicly condemned these cross-border attacks. but he backed down when i asked him to provide examples of these public statements. i said, send me the clippings. he then said, well, they're lower level officials who make those statements. now, what has been apparent for years is that pakistan military intelligence, the isi, maintains ties with the haqqani network and provides support to this group. even as these extremists engage in cross-border attack against our forces. u.s. ambassador to pakistan cameron munter recently said in connection with the attack on the u.s. embassy this kabul that there was evidence linking the haqqani network to the pakistani government. and, of course, admiral mullen's testimony last month before my

armed services committee that the haqqani network acts as a, quote, veritable arm of the pakistani isi, was a sharp public declaration by our top military officer who is known as a friend of pakistan. we owe it to our military, the men and women who put on the uniform of the united states, that when we send them into harm's way, that we challenge pakistan over its support for the extremist groups that are attacking our troops. and afghan troops and civilians. there their own pakistan -- from their own pakistan territory. it is simply unacceptable for the united states to spend its blood and treasure so that afghanistan does not once again become a breeding ground for militant extremists while pakistan at the same time protects terrorists who cross the border to attack us. pakistan cannot evade its

responsibility for its role in allowing and supporting these attacks. at the least pakistan needs to condemn the attacks of the haqqanis in afghanistan, and pakistani officials need to end their denials of the plain truth. lieutenant general pasha, the head of the isi, called admiral mullen's testimony baseless. he denied that the haqqani network was even in pakistan, and he claimed that pakistan had not provided the haqqanis, quote, a penny or provided even a single bullet. president zardari wrote movingly in a recent op-ed about the losses that pakistans has suffered from extremist groups. bent on terrorizing the pakistani people. but he failed to mention, much less condemn, the attacks that haqqani and taliban extremists

based in pakistan are conducting against our forces in afghanistan. so what actions are open to us to correct the situation? if pakistan will not take on the threat posed by the haqqanis and other extremist groups based in pakistan who attack our forces in afghanistan, then we should be prepared to take steps to defend our troops. it is consistent with established principles of international law. the united states, to defend itself and to defend afghanistan against cross-border attacks by insurgents based in pakistan and to respond to those attacks. the recent report that aha canny -- a haqqani operative was killed in a north waziristan

town, an area that was heretofore off limits, an example of the kind of action that is overdue. we have the right to target not only forces and artillery attacking our forces in afghanistan there across the border in pakistan, but to target the people controlling those forces as well. as secretary panetta has said, the message that the pakistanis need to know is that we're going to do everything that we can to defend our forces. and when we do that, i predict that he will have strong support and bipartisan support in the u.s. congress. we should inform pakistan that it should not expect to normalize its relationship with the united states so long as it provides safe haven for violent extremist groups or uses terrorists as proxies against

other country. we may not be able to persuade pakistan that its activities are counterproductive for its own security and stability and for the security and stability of the region. but we must let them know clearly, as secretary clinton did yesterday, that this is a show stopper to a normal relationship with the united states. there's also evidence that the pakistanis have interfered with attempts to achieve political reconciliation in afghanistan. obstructing peace talks unless they can exercise control over the taliban groups involved and control over the substance of the talks. and we should be clear with the pakistanis that obstruction of reconciliation efforts in afghanistan is also an impediment. to improved relations with us.

also it's long past due for the united states to call the haqqani network for what it is and add this extremist group to the state department's foreign terrorist organization list. the haqqanis should be listed alongside the pakistani taliban, lash car e lashkar-e-taiba and al-qaeda as foreign terrorist organizations. keeping the haqqanis off that list has not encouraged that group to join a reconciliation process, nor has it prevented the pakistani isi from continuing its support for the haqqanis. designating the haqqanis as a foreign terrorist organization would send another message to pakistan, that we will respond to its support of this extremist organization. nobody wants the u.s./pakistan relationship to return to the early 1990s when the u.s.

disengaged from pakistan. nowhere are the effects of that disengagement felt more strongly than in our bilateral military-to-military relations. a whole generation of mid-level pakistani officers had no contact with their u.s. counterparts through such programs as the international military education and training program. the absence of these connections has contributed to anti-americanism among those now-senior pakistan officers. but admiral mullen was right to say that a flawed relationship with pakistan is better than none at all. we do need to stay engaged with pakistan. we do need to try to act together when our interests align. we should attempt to understand

pakistan's motivations and concerns even when we disagree with them. and we should seek to build a bilateral based on our shared interest in promoting democratic values, security and stability in pakistan and throughout the region. but in continuing to find ways to improve a, quote, flawed relationship, we must also speak clearly. pakistan's foreign minister recently said that if the united states persists in allegations about the isi/haqqani connection, the united states, in her words, quote, will lose an ally. our response should be that if the only option that pakistan presents us is a choice between

losing an ally and continuing to lose our troops, then we will choose the former. again, my thanks for the invitation, and i'd be happy to try the answer your questions. thank you. [applause] >> thanks very much. we'll start with -- [inaudible] more comfortable. so much to talk about on pakistan and afghanistan almost just to get it out of the way because of the events of the last 24 hours in libya if you'll let me take that short diversion before we go back to the afpak region to a early and vocal opponent of the iraq invasion. already people are making comparisons to what happened in libya to what happened in iraq. a trillion dollars, 4,000 american lives, eight-year

occupation. few weeks, joint nato air operation, cooperation with the rebels op the ground, you remove a dictator. is that a fair compare to make? and -- comparison to make? and is this a policy template for the u.s.? something that's revolving the debate of should we get involved in syria. and we know the reasons why that would be more difficult and possibly too difficult. but first question, is this a new policy template we can apply to other countries? could syria be a country like that? >> i think it is a template, and because it is, it doesn't easily fit syria. um, i wish it did because syria has a dictator as libya did. um, but the reason that i think it is a template, in your word, is that, number one, it was a operation which had international support both in the arab world, by the arab

league, it had support in the united nations. secondly, it was not led by us, but we made a significant contribution to its success. third, it showed that nato can still be effective, um, and i think that's very important. nato's really the one ea license in the world -- alliance in the world that has some worldwide impact and can have impact in other places other than its own area. so, um, i think that there's some real important strengths from lessons to be learned. i give our president a lot of credit for the thoughtfulness with which he approached this issue, insisting that there be leaders that our, that others take the lead and that have international support.

and the reasons for its success you can attribute to that plus this extraordinary way in which modern technology was used by the people, first and foremost, in libya with social networking, but secondly, by the technology that was used militarily to have real impact militarily without putting boots on the ground which is something we need to avoid if we can. so all of those factors, all those aspects were really important, i believe. and in syria you do not have international support for action, and you surely don't have support in the arab world for action. and those are important factors, i believe, that led to the -- or contributed at least to the success in libya. >> um, just one other point that struck me as you watched those video of gadhafi and his sons

killed and new evidence this morning that he was alive when he was taken, you see the man begging for his life. we don't know how it happened. the government claims that he was shot in the crossfire, seems difficult to, difficult to believe. to watch that happen, what does this say about this, the rebels -- they're no longer rebels, but the ntc's ability to run a government fairly and justly if immediate reaction, and this was, in effect, a u.s./nato -- under the umbrella of nato leadership, a basic execution. >> first of all, i'm not sure it was a summary execution. i don't know enough, i haven't been briefed, i doubt that our briefers know enough about reicely what happened precisely. i don't know that he wasn't caught in this crossfire, i saw and read the same reports you did. we'll know more about that, perhaps, as the days move on. but hopefully -- we don't know an awful lot about who they are,

and they're not gelled, and i don't know that it's clear yet what direction they're going to take. and, of course, there's some risk that they'll move in the wrong direction. but there's a lot of evidence that there will be at least the potential here of the government that will respect the rule of law, that will honor at least to a far greater extent clearly than their predecessor, the human rights of their people. and all we can do is do everything we can to contribute to the right direction and with allies. and this is really important here. with the international community that was so important in its support of this effort, um, that we put as much, we lean on the new government so they do move in the right direction. >> okay, pakistan. admiral mullen got some grief for his comments, some said he went too far to call the haqqani

network a veritable arm of the isi. your comments seem to support that. do you believe that -- because it's the sin of mission versus comission. are they actively supporting or looking the oh way and not doing enough? you believe they are actively supporting. >> there is active support as well as allowing a safe haven to exist. there's clearly intelligence support and other direct support, and, um, i -- my opening statement that morning that admiral mullen appears in front of us was very, very similar to what he was saying. and i've been saying it, actually, for some time and so have others in our government. it wasn't that what he said was so new, it was a little bit sharper than what he had previously said, and it clearly was covered very, very well. and i think he said he said exactly what he meant to say,

and i think the slight move away from that that we saw from the white house spokesman is not nearly as important or significant as what he said. >> in the, the any own experience you see secretary clinton on the ground in pakistan, and i'm going to misquote her metaphor, but something about the snake this backyard doesn't only bite your neighbor. the point being that these groups are going to threaten you, they're going to threaten the pakistani government. my own experience there, i call it tongue in cheek the state of denial. from the top level of government to taxi drivers when you ask them about the tal babb, they say, well, it's not really the taliban. it's probably the americans, they want to justify. a familiar conspiracy theory, but that denial seems to infiltrate very influential people there. do, in your experience, do pakistani officials, military leaders get the threat that they can be in those crosshairs and, in fact, are this crosshairs,

and it can threaten their power? do they get that point? >> they clearly get the point that terror is threaten them because terrorists do threaten them. they've taken huge losses from terrorists, domestic, internal. so they don't need to be taught, i think, or they don't need to understand or accept the lesson about the toll that terrorism takes. >> be but i'm talking about the existential threat to their power. >> um, i think that terrorism can be an existential threat, as a matter of fact, to pakistan, and what it produces and the reaction to it if, if not strong, can also be an existential threat. but they don't really, i think, accept obviously that they're condoning the use of their land as a safe haven for terrorism and the relationship, that cozy relationship between at least part of their intelligence service and the haqqani group

and as well the afghan taliban that is mainly located down in qeta, that that represents a threat to their relationship with us. um, i don't think they really tully understand that -- fully understand that, and the denial which you refer to is the denial of what the facts are both in terms of the relationship between the isi and between the facts that the haqqani are located quite openly in north waziristan. i mean, for their top officials to say that they're not even here, the cannies are -- haqqanis are not even here in pakistan is probably the epitome of denial. >> yeah. >> so i don't -- what they've done is bought time. they've tried to buy peace. they've tried to take a group that could threaten them which is the ha haqqanis which we have some real military capability and buy them off. by essentially saying, hey,

we'll let you operate from here, we'll get you some support if you focus on the folks across the border and leave us alone. that's what they've tried to do. will that end up biting them? it may or may not. i'm not sure it will. but it's biting us, and i think what will bite them would be the loss of a stronger relationship with the united states. >> what would that look like? you mentioned that choice, that the u.s. if given the choice between losing american soldiers in effect at the hands of pakistanis and keeping an imperfect relationship would choose the latter. what would our situation in that part of the world look like if we chose to end or significantly reduce the relationship? what does it look like? how do you do it? >> well -- >> how do you withdraw from afghanistan? >> well, no one's talking about withdrawing -- >> well, draw down. >> the drawdown in afghanistan is set for at least the next couple years. there was some strong opposition to it particularly among some of the republicans who thought it

was a mistake to set these dates which, i think, had to be set in order to focus the afghan government on their responsibility and in order to promote the chances of success because it's the taking of responsibility for their own security by an army in afghanistan which is stronger, more effective and larger that is the best hope for defeating the taliban in afghanistan. but i don't know -- >> without that -- >> that's not your question. >> yeah. what does it look like -- >> in afghanistan. >> >> in afghanistan and pakistan. >> what does u.s. policy this that crucial region look like without pakistani help? >> much more difficult, obviously, without pakistan. it's not impossible. it just will be more difficult. a long-term relationship with afghanistan with a much smaller number of u.s. troops in support of a continuing support of an afghan army that is